So Faithful

1st Samuel chapter 22, verse number 14, And Ahimelech answered the king, Besal, and said, And who is so faithful among all his servants as David, which is the king's son-in-law, and goeth at his bidding, and is honorable in thine house? Now I think it's significant that the words faithful and honorable are in the same verse. One little expression, if I could leave with you at the beginning of this conference, just to take with you, that should speak to my heart as well, only time it's used in your Bible, the word faithful is used 86 or 88 times, the only time you have the expression so faithful, we've just read it, so faithful. If I could encourage one and all, young and old this morning, with one thing it would be this, go in for it, it's open to all.

Now this was of David, that Ahimelech the priest is speaking, and he's speaking to a madman, I'm not sure if he saw the flash of anger in Saul's eyes as he could have said it about anybody else except David, and here's his words, answered the king and said, And who is so faithful? How would you describe a personal believer as being so faithful? What status quo, what standard would they have to come up to you to say of that believer so faithful? Brethren let's not kid ourselves, I wouldn't be on this platform, there wouldn't be a testimony here, there wouldn't be a conference here or anywhere else, if it wasn't that in a former generation we had believers that were so faithful, so faithful, you know them, how would you describe a sister that would be in our assembly back home? Pardon the personal reference, Florence lost her husband, she was an outsider, got saved, lost her husband at a young age to cancer, fought cancer herself, her mother and brother when they're in trouble they call Florence, she does whatever they want, took the mother to the hospital the other morning at three o'clock in the morning, who's the first person in the hall in Sussex at any meeting? Florence, and when you come in, how are you doing Florence? I'm great she says, I'm just great, happy? I would describe someone like that as so faithful, so faithful, come on some of us sneezed twice we had a missed meeting, we think got a cold coming, not Florence, come on you've had believers and I know them right from here in Stout, right older brethren and sisters, they dragged themselves to the place if they had to, they were so faithful, now David was not a perfect man, in fact right in the context of this chapter, you would almost be telling a hemlock a little less than the whole truth, I didn't take time to read it for this simple reason, you could read that yourself, David had failures, he had faults just like you and I, nevertheless it could rightly be put as an epitaph on his tombstone, so faithful, you tell me a better one to have on anybody's tombstone? Somebody said to me back home in Sussex, we have a tombstone company, they said listen all the epitaphs you want to put on a tombstone, you'd have to have something pretty high to get them all on, everyone on pre-shot, wouldn't that be a good one to have on the tombstone? Well here's another one, okay, just two words, so faithful, does that describe you? If I went to your brethren and said, brother so-and-so and his wife, how they doing? Oh so faithful, so faithful, I doubt you'd take time even to come to this conference, spend money, miles and everything else, if somehow there wasn't faithfulness even in your life, I'm not sure if it's, you use the word faithful when it comes to playing baseball, and I don't really have a lot of interest in baseball, well yeah maybe I do, but I don't watch it or never been interested in it, except I read about one player, that was very interesting, a guy by the name of Cal Ripken, Cal Ripken played for no other team but the Baltimore Orioles, and he played I think was a total of somewhere near 20 years, but he played 2632 baseball games consecutively. Was he ever hurt? Yeah. Do you ever like, feel like not picking up the bat and going to the plate? Yeah.

Were there days that he could have called up and said, I just can't make it? Yes. But he went. So where'd he go? To the Hall of Fame.

Hebrews chapter 11, and we have men there, and where do they go? To the Hall of Faith. No, I would consider, honestly, I can say before God, searching my own heart, I would consider it a tremendous commendation if two words would express the totality of my Christian experience, so faithful. Listen, you know as well as I do, and there's lots of prime seats right up here at the front, right up, lots of seats up here, seriously, I won't embarrass them.

I always preach to the ones coming in late or last or at the back. In the Bible, we read of men that were faithful, and we would never take that from them. Moses is the first one to be mentioned as faithful, and Hebrews will tell us later on, years later and chapters later, that he was faithful in all his house.

Now I know that commentators have debated for whatever length of time just what is meant by all his house and so on, but I think that teaching is this, whether it was in his parents' house or in his own house that disappointed him at times, or in God's house, you got a man that's faithful. Isn't it sad when you've known those and you've worked with them, and they were once faithful, very faithful. Things have changed.

Let's not kid ourselves, things have changed. No, they won't answer your email. No, they won't answer your letter.

Why? Because there's been changes that they cannot support from this book. And you tell me that's being faithful? You tell me that's being faithful? Men like Abraham, Timothy, Epaphras, Philemon, commendable men, tremendous men, they were faithful men. So you say, well, what really do I have to be faithful to? What do you think you have to be faithful to? Faithful to God.

Faithful to God. You be faithful to God and you'll be faithful to me. You'll be faithful to your wife.

You'll be faithful to your family. You'll be faithful to your friends. Faithful men.

Faithful sisters. I love them. You can count on them.

Don't have to worry about them. And that's what we want. That's what will hold, brethren and sisters, that's what will hold testimony.

Just let me say stoke because that's where I am for a minute. That's what will keep it. Faithfulness.

You could be the most friendly individual in this audience today. I'm not a faithful person. Friendliness is a wonderful thing.

We should be friendly because we are friends. But friendliness itself will hold you. Faithfulness too.

You're faithful to God and the cause that is His. No less the difference between a man by the name of Abishai and Joab. Sometimes we overshadow Abishai by Joab.

Really? You read closely about Abishai. He was more faithful to David than was Joab. You say, well how would you know that? Well, simple.

At least I think it is. When you read it, he wins a battle. Who's he ascribe the victory to? He did it in the name of David.

That's why when sometimes you say the name Abishai, people say, ooh. They say, yeah. One of the sons of Zeruiah? Yeah.

His brother Ahasuerus? Yes. His other brother Joab? Yes. That he is.

Not a big name mention. But nevertheless he was faithful. But why to have a man like David? A David, a man that was so faithful.

So faithful to the cause. And yet a man that had his weak points. Did you ever wonder why going through that you got a man like Saul? I mean, some of you carpenters, you've been busy repairing walls that the dart had hit instead of David.

And all he hunted him and hounded him, misaligned him, mistreated him, did everything. And when the opportunity came to take him out, David wouldn't do it. In fact, he felt bad that he cut a piece of his garment off.

He felt bad about it. On the other occasion when he will take, as he finds him that time sleeping, that's a different story. Might talk about that later in the conference.

It's interesting. His spear and the cruise of water, he took them. Nevertheless never touched the king because he was God's anointed.

Got a man, another man by the name of Nabal, absolute fool. Boy, I don't know about you, but I read through that chapter and I find out how he treated David's men, I'm mad. I think this guy doesn't deserve to breathe.

I would feel like David, take him out. But thank God, dear sister, for a sister that had wisdom, Abigail. And she comes and beseeches him.

Okay, this is the man so faithful. This is still a man so faithful. No, no, she says, don't, don't.

What does she bring to his attention? Just read the chapter very slowly. You know what she mentions? The sling, a past victory. David, well you can't always live on past victories.

A man that could be so victorious, used of God, don't go down with this fool. She may be saying to him in vernacular language, pick your fights better than that. Sometimes it's like the cartoon you see of the, the bear.

He's had a big kill and he's decided he's eaten whatever he killed and was thirsty, so he's going over the river for a drink. In the meantime, Mr. Skunk comes along and he's eating. When the big bear comes back, he walks away.

Underneath it said, some fights just aren't worth it. That was David. Tremendous.

Why was that? Can I suggest? He wanted to go to Israel's throne without his hands stained with blood. He wanted to sit on Israel's throne without his hands stained with blood. You know the sad thing? The man that was so faithful, left Israel's throne with his hands stained with blood of Uriah the Hittite.

Faithfulness is serious business, brethren and sisters. Faithfulness. I want to draw to your attention two verses.

First Corinthians, of course, would be the first one, and that is where Paul is writing to them, and he says, God is faithful. God is faithful. Who have called you unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

God is faithful. And brethren, God is faithful. Regardless of what you may feel this morning, regardless of what the outlook is, regardless of what's taking place in your life, be assured, God is faithful.

Now I go to the latter part of my Bible, the book of the Revelation. Here's an old man, he's writing to a little church. They were crushed.

Little church in Smyrna. With everything against them. The shortest of all the seven letters.

What does he say to that church? Be thou faithful. Now let's just go down, slow this up a bit, let me go to every individual. Brother, would you like to be a little more faithful? Sister, would you like to be a little more faithful? I did not know the man.

It would be Jim Flanagan I heard relate the story. It was a man by the name of Harry Eadie. Lived in Bryson Street in Belfast.

Mr. Eadie, I'm not sure what he was stricken with in life. But when we went to visit him, he was stricken in a bed for eight years. He'd be covered with a blanket.

You would not want to see his lower torso. Mr. Flanagan said, his legs looked like sticks, and his knees were the size of a football. That was Harry Eadie.

When you walked into that little house in Belfast to see Mr. Eadie, always greeted you with a smile. There's the Bible. Couldn't even pick it up.

He'd say, could you pick that Bible up for me? So whoever visited him would pick it up. And he'd say, would you read such and such? And he would teach them under the Word of God. And people who weren't saved would come in.

He'd say, just get the Bible, would you mind? Get the Bible. They'd pick the Bible up, and he'd turn them to a gospel text. And he would so kindly speak to them the gospel.

In that narrow little bedroom, there were two texts. Two texts. Anybody that knew Harry Eadie said he lived his life between those two texts.

On the one wall said, God is faithful. On the other wall it said, be thou faithful. Eight years until the Lord took him home to heaven.

Mr. Flanagan attended that funeral. And while he was at that funeral, the house was packed as it would be, and the streets and sidewalk. People had such respect for Mr. Eadie.

While he was standing in the, in the casket was being carried down out of the house, postman came along delivering mail. He had something very important to deliver, decided to deliver it. A small package, come from the good old USA.

Brother had sent Mr. Eadie a book. And so Mr. Eadie, Mr. Flanagan showed it to one of his children. They said, open it.

What is it? This, this is while the funeral's still, they're going to the graveyard. Mr. Flanagan said, we just tore the, because they passed it to him, just took the paper off and it said, the title of the book, Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I Trust Him. I'm not sure what marks Mr. Eadie's grave today, but you could write, brother and sisters, could you not? So faithful.

So faithful. Whatever the expense is to put this conference on, whatever the distances that you have come, if you could leave Stoke Conference 2018 with this determination, I want faithfulness to mark my life like it never has. I want to be as faithful as I can to his cause.

Assembly meetings, and you know, sometimes you talk to people, they say, well, I'm doing the best I can. Oh, best you can? Are you sure? Have you been at every meeting that you could have been at? It's just coming to my mind now in a very practical way. Have you been to every meeting you could have been at? No, you haven't.

Come on. I haven't. One occasion, one occasion, I can remember on a Sunday morning, had a nice storm in southwestern Ontario.

We had eggs packed or whatever, places calling, and I decided we had to process eggs that day. I'll never forget, I was calling up the ladies to come in that we're going to work Sunday morning and start the, we had a machine that packed and candled 2,000 dozen an hour, so it's no small machine, and that's 45 years ago. I can remember just kind of a silence on the phone when I'd say, I call up different ones, Doris, we're running today, and they say, oh, okay, okay.

Call up another one, Marilyn, we're running the plant today. Can you come in? Oh, I guess. They came.

I'll never forget it. Big long machine there, you load them with suction cups, the eggs, and when I hit the power to go on that, I just threw the power control power up and boom, and we weren't grading eggs. Everybody was going home.

Got electricians in Monday, I was even afraid to open the panel. I'm no electrician. I'd get killed doing something like that.

Got the electrician in. He opened the panel, he said, there's nothing wrong. I thought, come on, he says, listen.

I said, Ross, Ross Walls, Walls Electric. I said, look closer, something's wrong. He said, come here, come here.

He said, there's been a bit of an arc, a bit of an arc, he says, in here, but you're okay. Fuses are good. Your machine is gonna go.

I said, would you mind turning it on for me? The girls were all there, and I just kind of stood back, they put on. The thing ran like a sewing machine. Now listen, you're running an egg processing plant, things happen, you get behind, I am not coming down on you for something like that, okay? But I could have been where I should have been.

I could have been. Oh, I know I have my excuses, we all do. But I like this man in Limelech, he was a lover of David.

When he said this, he knew to describe anybody else would have been all right, but not David is so faithful. So faithful. How honorable, how delightful to think, amidst failures or whatever it is, you could still say of David, so faithful.

Maybe up to now, nobody could say that of you. It's kind of a hit and miss business. Not because I'm speaking of brothers and sisters, this isn't really a preach, it's a trial run.

But I would like, before God, every single believer here this morning, to go in for a caption that is open to all, so faithful. You say, well, no, those are big demands, you know, I just, what will it cost, what did it cost this man to say that of somebody else? That's when it's hard, eh? Say it of somebody else. Sometimes you like to wonder, do they understand how faithful I am? No, you say it of somebody else.

He likely knew it was going to cost him his life. And let me put it, so you understand it, New Testament language, to be so faithful, it will cost you, brother, your life. Are you prepared? Well, what does Romans chapter 12 say if it isn't saying that? The yielding of our bodies.

The giving of our lives. What does it mean? There's nothing more, worth more than that. Nothing pays better, bigger dividends than faithfulness to God.

Faithfulness to the honor of his name. As David had come in that morning, read back earlier in the chapter, he got Goliath's sword, whatever he wanted to take that and flash that around in Gath, which was the hometown of Goliath. I have no idea, but he got it.

Hey, remember the story about the showbread and on and on it goes? There's a man standing there, his name is Doeg, and Doeg knows this boy's going out. He did. Cost him his life to say it.

Cost him his life to say it. No, it's nice to be able to say nice things about other believers. The nicest things, the Lord Jesus, he said everything was nice that he said, okay? But if you like, the most complimentary language he used was speaking to somebody else about John.

I think it's commendable when there are believers that will speak so well of fellow believers. But please believer, leave something in your life so they could speak of at least one commendable thing about you. So faithful.

You know the cause? Let me tell you about the faithful one. The faithful one. Peter speaks of him as the faithful creator.

The faithful creator. And he's a faithful God. These men that are marked by men of faith in our Bible, we draw the examples of that from them, they learned this from the one that they served.

Think of how faithful he was. If he wasn't faithful, even unto death, even the death of the cross, where would we be? We'd have perished in our sins. No gospel to preach.

No hope for heaven. Nothing for the future. Aren't you glad he was so faithful? I am.

As we gather tomorrow morning in the will of God, we're going to thank him he was so faithful. You did last week. You were there, I hope, last week.

You broke bread last week. No, I understand. People have shift work.

I understand there's times when you can't. But could you? And you didn't? Go in for faithfulness. Remember the faithful one that we serve.

The faithful God that we have. And it's not to get recognition by the brethren or sisters. But I still think it's the best that can be said, and I want you to remember two little words this morning.

Go in for it. So faithful.